Spare the gory details ...

PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) — A fighting bull gored two Spaniards and tossed several others into the air in a frantic fourth running of the bulls Thursday at Spain's San Fermin festival in Pamplona.

A Navarra regional government statement said the two men were gored in the leg and another five people were taken to Pamplona hospitals for minor injuries sustained in the 8 a.m. dash Thursday. The gorings were caused by a lone bull that raced ahead of the pack, raising panic among the hundreds of screaming runners along the 930-yard (850-meter) course from a holding pen to Pamplona's bull ring.

The morning runs are the highlight of the nine-day street-partying festival, which was immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" and attracts thousands of foreign tourists. Dozens of people are injured each year in the runs, most of them in falls.

Fifteen people have died from gorings since record-keeping began in 1924. Four Spaniards and one American have been gored so far in this year's festival but only one, a Spaniard, was said to be in serious condition.

The six bulls used in each run are invariably killed in afternoon bullfights in the ring.

How is it this so-called "partying festival" still allowed to take place?

Photo: APA runner falls, bottom, as revelers run ahead Garcigrande fighting bulls before they come into in the bull ring, during the running of the bulls, at the San Fermin festival, in Pamplona, Spain, Thursday, July 10, 2014. Revelers from around the world arrive to Pamplona every year to take part in some of the eight days of the running of the bulls glorified by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."

Running of the bulls history

The idea of leading the bulls by running in front of them is neither very new nor very original

There have been many examples of this throughout the long history of man's relationship with the bulls and indeed, at present you can find similiar kinds of bull-running being held in several towns around Spanish State. The basic idea is that it is a way of getting the bulls into the bull-ring from whatever kind of corral or enclosure they are being kept in.

The different circumstances in each particular place means that there are some change in details but not in the essential spirit of the act. Throughout its long history, there have been different methods employed to bring the bulls up to the bull ring. There was a time when the bulls were not lead by runners. But at some uncertain date it seems that the butchers guild were responsible for bringing in the bulls (and for this reason they had the Santo Domingo stretch for themselves alone) and they began to accompany the bull minders or drovers in bringing the bulls up from the pens in Santo Domingo to the bull ring.

As time passed the event became more and more popular and some people began to run in front of the bulls and not behind them, as the drovers do. In 1852, a new bull-ring was built and a new route - the actual route being used up to the present - was decided on and which ignored the traditional Chapitela street.

The run soon became much shorter also, because as from 1899, it was decided to bring the bulls up to a small corral in Santo Domingo street the night before they fight in the ring. So that is why there is an "encierrillo" each night before the morning run, when the bulls are moved from their enclosure on the far side of the river, up to the small corral at the bottom of Santo Domingo street where they will spend the night before making the morning run up to the bull ring.